The Cruising White Horse

The white horse is cruising at 38,000 above sea level. The wind is blowing outside but the inside is as calm as a slumbering cat. Passengers of all colors and sizes are minding their own business. Some are reading newspapers. Others reminiscent the good they are leaving behind. “Tighten your seat belts,” the captain announces like our lives depend on them.  We are landing.  Not in the Hudson River I hope. God bless the heroes. Twenty-four hours of flying from San Francisco to Nairobi through London has come to a non-nostalgic end. Or is it just beginning.

As we form a single file line out of the Boeing 777 behemoth, a child starts to cry. The usual, you know. Children.

Down the hallway something strange kisses my face. It’s warm, humid and as think as darkness.  So funny how fast I forget Africa owns 51% of the world’s sunshine and leaves the rest of the world to share the other 49%. Yes the heavy and wet kiss is the African sunshine, I realize.  The African heat that is ever present through thick and thin. I think Africa should be called the Sunshine continent, much like the sunshine state. I hear the sunshine state is actually and most likely less shiny than the gloomiest part of Africa.

Nairobi Kenya is not your Africa of the movies.  It is nothing close to the movie Madagascar Two where lions and elephants rule the highways and byways. Nairobi is robust.  With lounges, five start hotels and drinking joints modeled after the best of Europe, Nairobi is in no lack of aristocrats and the budding upper class of any rising city.

Down the street, a thin black model is galloping a sizzling glass of Coca-Cola. The soft drink giant owns half of Africa’s thirst business. Its tall million-dollar highway advertising billboards can be seen from as far way as 20 nautical miles.  Add to that Christian Dior, L’Oreal, and a few other brands and you have yourself a mini London. You can even spot one Kenyan taking a sip at the best of Europe’s martini.  It’s a different world out here.

Until you leave the airport and get kissed by reality. But I will not go into that. I have to catch a flight to Kigali now.